Nonlinear finite element dynamic analysis on multiprocessor computers

Abstract A computational procedure is presented for the nonlinear dynamic analysis of unsymmetric structures on vector multiprocessor systems. The procedure is based on a novel hierarchical partitioning strategy in which the response of the unsymmetric structure at any time instant is approximated by a linear combination of symmetric and antisymmetric response vectors (or modes), each obtained by using only a fraction of the degrees of freedom of the original finite element model. The three key elements of the procedure which result in high degree of concurrency throughout the solution process are: (a) mixed (or primitive variable) formulation with independent shape functions for the different fields; (b) operator splitting or restructuring of the discrete equations at each time step to delineate the symmetric and antisymmetric vectors constituting the response, and (c) two-level iterative process for generating the response of the structure. An assessment is made of the effectiveness of the procedure on the CRAY X-MP/4 computers.

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